LeapDriveOnline is calling itself, a space action RPG, with “social exploration”. We all understand what an RPG is, and what a space action game could be, but what the heck is “social exploration”? Well, we we’ll get to that a little later, but first a little about the game concept.

In LeapDriveOnline, you control a ship that navigates through a region of space called The Maelstrom. Ship navigation is similar to controlling a unit in an action RPG: you control the movement of the ship, firing your weapons and activating systems that give you special abilities. The Maelstrom, is essentially a massive maze, that is procedurally generated, from hundreds of connected regions of space, called Cells, much like a normal rogue-like game. Each instance of The Maelstrom is shared among a community of players. All of the players begin at the same location at the edge of The Maelstrom, and they need to explore, fight and battle, in order to find a path to The Core. The Core is the goal, and lies at the center of The Maelstrom. Dotted througout the maze, players will find “beacons”, which allows them to start their next journey from that cell. You can think of the beacons as spatial save-points.

LeapDriveOnline

Ok, so that’s all pretty cool stuff, particularly the procedurally generated space. Now let’s talks about the “social exploration” aspect of the game. Built into the heart of the game is a system for sharing paths that players have found. For example, if I find a powerful relic in a cell, I can send my buddy a path to reach that relic, which he can follow. I still need to reach the relic myself, but the path to reach it will be marked. Some people will share information with others, and some people won’t. To make that decision more interesting, if someone uses a path that I have sent them, I receive a fuel bonus that allows me to make more trips. So, do I share information? How broadly? What will it gain me? This is the “social exploration” aspect of the game.

In the end, the LeapDriveOnline promises to be a race, with individuals and clans trying to reach the core of the maze. The enemies you face will increase in difficulty as you approach the core, and there will be a rich system of ship upgrades to make your ship more powerful as you play.

The game is written in HTML 5 and WebGL, which is unusual, and fairly bold, and means that it will run anywhere that runs a Chrome / Firefox / Safari browser, on PC / Mac / Linux / Tablet / Phone.

To me, it sounds like a pretty cool concept, and I look forward to gaining access to it. At this point, the developer says the game is playable, but needs to be balanced. There is a closed beta, but it is, well, closed, for now at least.